Bruce Springsteen may be haggard, a bit worse for wear, but it befits his ethos, I’m just a hardworking journeyman telling the tales of the working man.  He wants to appear vibrant, alive, still in the creative mode.  He even puts out new albums.

Same deal with Paul McCartney.  He dyes his hair, but wants you to believe he could pop out a hit single at any moment. Listen to "Memory Almost Full" recently?  I doubt it.  You probably haven’t listened to "Working On A Dream" either.  But they’re trying.  Just like U2 and the Stones.  They don’t want to admit they’re has-beens, they’re still working it, they’re asking us to still believe.

And some do.

But most don’t.

I thought the Who at the Super Bowl was a brilliant idea.  They killed at the 9/11 tribute concert.  Emanating waves of power that blew hair back across the floor of Madison Square Garden.

But it’s ten years later.  And those songs are ten years older.  Forty one years old in the case of "Pinball Wizard", thirty eight and a half in the case of the "Who’s Next" standards.  The classics have become TV show anthems.  Suddenly, classic rock is our father’s music.  And we’re our fathers.

But Mick Jagger is still skinny!  Still prancing!  Still making new music!  He’s older than I am, he’s young, so am I.  I can put on my leather jacket, go to the gig and believe I’m a teenager again!

But I’m not.
Hell, it’s great that we can still see so many classic acts live.  But, the reality is it’s like going to a museum.  We don’t want them to be alive, don’t want them to be vibrant, we don’t buy their new albums and if we do, we barely listen to them. SoundScan doesn’t lie.  The days of running down to the store on the day of release to buy the new album, playing it over and over again so you know every note of the new material at the show, are done.  You just want to hear the hits.  All anybody cares about the hits.

But we delude ourselves.  If our heroes are young, then we’re young too.

Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend are no longer young.  If, like Robert Plant, Roger wanted to step his vocals down an octave and do new material, I’m all for it.  But to see him on stage trying to replicate what once was…is utterly creepy.  It was great to see Townshend windmill.  But he gave up on the Who, until we all gave up on his solo material, and then he decided to dash for the cash.  Hell, when was the first retirement tour, 1982?

So, afraid of a titty, afraid of the current acts, the NFL decided to go with the classic rockers.  Not acknowledging that they’re as aged as George Burns and Mickey Rooney and as lame as Up With People were in the old days.  These were cutting edge, vibrant acts.  We all bought into the construct until Sunday night.  When an act that hasn’t eked out memorable new material in decades took the stage looking like the senior citizens they are and mostly played to tape.

Ever see Zak Starkey in concert?  He may not be Keith Moon, but he plays with passion, banging his kit incessantly. Sunday night, he was tapping along to his prerecorded fills.  Sure, Townshend was windmilling, but who were those drab guys going through the motions in the background?  If this worked, it would be a conflagration, everybody strumming like it mattered.

But it doesn’t.

This music hasn’t mattered for a very long time.  It’s truly classic.  But it’s aged.  We want something new.  But we’ve got nothing new.  So we hearken back half a century.  Suddenly, Sunday night, you could see how threadbare the concept had become.  The NFL has run through the greatest acts of rock and roll history.  Now what?

The only option is to go forward.  Just like human beings.  You can’t live in the past.  You can talk to the dead, but they don’t talk back.  You can jerk off to a past love, but they’re never coming back.  You’ve got to march forward.  However scary that might be.

And it’s plenty scary.

The reason everybody weighed in about the Who at the Super Bowl is because they know the Who and their music and they were watching the Super Bowl.  What are the odds another person even knows the music you’re listening to today? What are the odds you even know what new music to listen to?  What are the odds we’re all tuned into the same TV show?

Just about nil.

But to contemplate things being different is just too scary.  Record companies want to sell albums.  Diehards say they love CDs, even vinyl!  But they’re dying, all of them, just like the physical book.  Doesn’t mean you can’t play an LP and enjoy it, it’s just that most people don’t own a  turntable and just don’t care.

I can’t believe the Saints went for it on fourth and one.  But they believed in themselves.  That’s the key to forward progress. You can’t doubt yourself.  You can’t play it safe.

The NFL’s been playing it safe since the uncovering of Janet Jackson’s nipple.  So scared of the future, of the present, that it lives in the past.  It can’t go on forever.  Just like Phil Simms can no longer suit up and play the game.

And the great surprise of Sunday was the onside kick that opened the second half.  Had never ever happened before. Except in the fourth quarter.  When it’s desperation time, when you’re behind and praying.  The Saints decided to take hold of the game.

Are you ready to take hold of your life?

Do you want artists to take hold of their careers?

Or do you just want the same damn thing over and over again.

It’s weird getting old.  The body doesn’t work as well.  You have aches and pains.  But you don’t give up.  The Who gave up. There’s no new music.  They’re afraid no one wants to listen.  But that shouldn’t stop an artist.  You still write,  you still compose, even if you end up playing clubs.

But you make a hell of a lot less money.

The Super Bowl didn’t sell Bruce’s album.  Nor the Stones’.  Because no sporting event has that power.  Especially if you don’t risk playing the new music to begin with.  Especially if you’re playing by someone else’s rules, in this case the NFL’s.

You can say no.  But you leave all that exposure on the table.

But modern artists realize the game has changed.  Exposure doesn’t mean what it used to.  Because only the target audience truly cares.

Rock and roll was about taking risks.  Testing the limits of the audience.  Whether it be the Beatles with "Sgt. Pepper" and a year and a half later "Revolution 9" or Neil Young going on tour after the success of "Harvest" and playing loud rock and roll, alienating his audience.

When did music become about fulfilling expectations?  About giving people what they want?  Wasn’t it always the opposite?  About leading?

Of course.

You could enjoy the Who on Sunday night.  But there’s no way in hell you could say you were inspired, that you were taken to new heights, got new insight from their performance.  They gave you just what you were looking for.  We’ve demanded this from acts.  We want them to stay the same.  We’re the problem.  And the aged acts can’t say no.  They’re on the gravy train, they want the money.

Every year is the same
And I feel it again
I’m a loser – no chance to win

Pete Townshend was an outsider, all the stars of yore were not cool, they picked up instruments to get noticed, to get laid, because they saw no other way.  They were beat up and bullied in high school.  They didn’t play on the team, they weren’t winners.  How ironic they all want to play this sporting event, populated by the people who had contempt for them.

But I am one
I am one
And I can see
That this is me
And I will be
You’ll all see
I’m the one

That’s the essence of rock and roll.  Turning your outsider status inside out.  Letting your freak flag fly and convincing everybody that they should follow YOU!  That you’re the one who’s got it right, not them.

You can’t have it both ways.  You can’t be against the man and for him.  You can’t test the limits and play by the rules.

You’ve got to be able to say no.  You’ve got to be able to turn down the opportunity because it just doesn’t feel right, no matter how many people are watching, no matter how much money is involved.

Or else you’re a parody of yourself.  In a circle jerk with your old fans.  Both believing in what once was.  Which is now long gone.

The NFL could continue to play it safe.  But I think the jig is now up.  Like you and me, it’s time to take a risk, to try something new, knowing that it may not work, but you’ve got a chance of something great happening.  Remember hearing "Baba O’Riley" the first time?  That can only happen once.  It’s time to hear something new, to get that rush once again. Because without that rush, we’re calcified, we’re dead on the inside.

Thank god the NFL is not dead.  They can credit the Saints for that.  They surprised us.  The Who did not.